Southeast activists under the aegis of the International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law (Intersociety) and the Southeast Based Coalition of Human Rights Organizations (SBCHROs) on Sunday launched a devastating attack on prominent Igbo leaders who recently visited the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) Nnamdi Kanu in prison and thereafter called for his immediate release along with other detained Biafra activists.

While welcoming the development, the groups, however, blasted the said Igbo leaders for rediscovering their voices at a time they believed it was safe to do so. Though they did not mention them by name, News Express reports that were Intersociety and SBCHROs were apparently referring to former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, erudite economist, Prof. Pat Utomi, and former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Prof. Chidi Odinkalu, who on Tuesday led a delegation to visit Kanu in Kuje Prison Abuja.

“We wish to decry strongly the resurgence of tainted saints in Nigeria, on account of the long absence of ailing President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria; notoriously known in the Southeast rights community and other social quarters as the Butcher of Aso Rock.

By tainted saints, we mean a group of Nigerians with robust and compelling hybrid academic and social expertise who hitherto distinguished themselves as Nigeria’s mainstream rights activists and pro democracy CSOs’ leaders or Lagos School of Social Sainthood; but who unforgivably or unpardonably compromised and slumbered following the emergence of the atrocious Administration of Retired Major Gen Muhammadu Buhari; which they conspiratorially installed,” Intersociety and SBCHROs said in a statement issued in Onitsha.

According to the two groups, “It is totally correct to say that their ignoble roles were responsible for the audacity and alacrity with which the atrocious Administration of Retired Major Gen Muhammadu Buhari embarked on butcheries of incomparable records and proportions as well as other forms of regime atrocities.

“For instance, under the leadership of a number of prominent members of the Lagos former School of Social Sainthood, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) watched cowardly, leprously and abominably while the atrocious Administration of Retired Major Gen Muhammadu Buhari butchered over 1,000 unarmed and defenceless members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) and over 80 unarmed and defenceless members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and other Pro Biafra Campaigners. The periods of the butcheries took place between July 2015 and February 2016 when the said prominent Lagos former Social Sainthood School members were still holding sway as the NHRC leaders.

“As if that was not enough, the NHRC under the said leadership abominably issued a report indicting the IMN and disentangling the murderous Nigerian Army and its COAS.

The said report was grossly in contradiction with the empirical findings of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other leading local rights groups in Nigeria.

During the 2015 General Elections, the NHRC and its referenced leadership patently became a branch of INEC and APC and virtually took over the judicial proceedings in the Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Cross River states’ Governorship Elections Tribunals.

“Nowhere in the NHRC’s records and archives, till date, contains a single press statement condemning the atrocious killing of unarmed and defenceless Pro Biafra Campaigners including those who gathered at the National High School in Aba to clap and sing with their bibles, chaplets and Biafra flags. Till date all forms of regime atrocities pervading present the Buhari Administration have been condoned by the NHRC and members of the Lagos former School of Social Sainthood.

“Since the disappearance and absence of ailing President Muhammadu Buhari – THE BUTCHER OF ASO ROCK; these cowardly and tainted social saints have resurged and started speaking out. When their butcher-commander-in-chief was on the throne; they hardly talk or when they do, they speak from both sides of their mouths. Also when their grand paymaster was physically in-charge, they furnished same with technicalities and escape routes as they concerned mountainous regime atrocities of the former. They even held shallowly and falsely that “killing of Pro Biafra Campaigners is not legally admissible at the ICC or that ICC has refused to admit or investigate same”.

“During their midwifery of National Human Rights Commission, Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, among other Federal Government or public establishments in Nigeria or any part thereof; their human rights and service to humanity backgrounds were jettisoned and they turned themselves into business enterprisers; while their fellow rights activists were scorned and tagged “pathological noise makers and serial wailers”.

Totality of these explains why they hardly speak their independent minds till date without their illicit funders reminding them of where, location and value of proceeds of their illicit business enterprises earned through bread and butter activism.

“As recently as few days ago, these cowardly and tainted social saints suddenly and noisily woke up from slumber and invaded Kuje Prison to shake hands with the same inmates they conspired to cocoon, cajole and persecute. Certainly, phone calls must have rented the air before such leprous invasion was undertaken to confirm and ensure that “the Butcher of Aso Rock” will no longer come back and mount the Aso Rock throne.

“Our major reason of issuing this joint statement is not to deprive or prevent these Nigerians of their choice to probate and reprobate or turncoat; but to remind all Nigerians of the roles of same since July 2015 and prior to same. Nigerians have forgotten and will never forget!

“As for them too, events of the coming weeks will truly show them their level of falling and precipitation. In the current scheme of things in Nigeria’s human rights and pro democracy circles; we make bold to say that they are chronically aloof and will never be the same again!”

Update news